Meilei opened her mouth to argue back, but the devilish glint of nasty growing in his eyes silenced her, clamping her mouth shut, knowing she shouldn’t escape this. Her heart was racing, and she experienced genuine fear for this version of him in front of her. He snarled.
Meilei hesitated, words scrambling in her brain, and finally found some to whine out.
“I haven’t even begun to start hurting you yet,” Kai replied with sarcasm, his lip curling back in a sneer that showed more of his perfectly straight white teeth. He knew she would understand the meaning and that he was not talking about physical pain as he watched her bottom lip tremble and her eyes mist with tears. Satisfied that he could put her in her place even if he had to resort to brutal methods and dominate her with sheer aggression.
Meilei’s whole body vibrated. Kai’s face was right in hers, so they shared air, and yet she couldn’t look him in the eye, focusing on his chest instead and slowly shrinking in his cruel hold. He seemed to tower over her in a menacing way that trapped her and blocked air and light. Her heart was racing so fast she thought it might pop and cease to beat.
That sentence riled up the inner spike of something he had been dodging all day. That same inner prickly anger and hurt that seeing Sakuro touch her had stoked. The thought that she had moved on with ‘someone’ when she had no right to be loved or happy with anyone ever again. It brought a choking bile to his throat and an irrational rage that made him want to trample her down.
He stepped forward, anticipating her step back, and she was wedged against the counter and couldn’t go any further. Startled that she had nowhere else to go while his grip disallowed any other route. Kai blocked her body and leaned the last inch so his nose strayed only millimeters above hers. He couldn’t get any closer without pressing his entire form on hers and touching faces. There was nothing but a hair strand of space between them.
Her perfume filled his senses, making him hate that she had never changed it. The proximity messed with his head and his heart rhythm. Her hair and body scent still had a fruit lingering sweetness because she had always loved those kinds of body products, and her tiny figure beneath him was so familiar it felt like cutting his heart out all over again. Being this close to her was bad for his mental state, and he pulled himself back for his own good, not hers. Ignoring how his body was heating up, his heart was pounding, and his palms had turned clammy from being too close to her.
Meilei was clinging to the counter with one hand as he tossed her wrist down and stepped back enough to put decent space between them. His breathing was as labored as hers.
“I’m failing her.” Meilei’s sudden raspy and emotional statement highlighted how down she had felt these past days, and it tugged at Ling’s heart and spiked her anger simultaneously.
“No, you are not, but Meilei, you can’t keep this up. He’s the lowest of the low to do this to you.” Ling was terrified that Kai would drag her back into the darkness they had once rescued her from if he kept pushing her this way. They could see her struggling, yet Ling and Suying could not help.
“You know what he holds over me. I have no choice.” Meilei was tired. Another late night, another day of endless slavery, and he had made her endure a boozy few hours serving drunk men in a supposed business meeting until this hour. He had taken great delight sitting with stuffy drunk suits, pawed over by eager women having her pouring their drinks. An escort bar full of scantily clad women, and he had made her work as hostess.
Ling held her tongue and waited until Meilei got up, tucked Yue in, and softly kissed her forehead. Meilei followed Ling to the lounge, where she sunk into one of the leather seats as though her limbs were made of jelly and let out a long, low moan. Her body was sore all over. She had no physical ability to do much more now she was home except vegetate here. Her feet ached and were blistered, and her legs were throbbing. She hadn’t sat down in hours.
Ling couldn’t stand it anymore. No one cast any shade Kai’s way because men were never held to the same standard, and as CEO, he could do what he wanted, and not one word against him would be said. Men could cheat. They could install a mistress and even blatantly tow her around in the public eye. But to be the one labeled as that mistress was career suicide. The culture they lived in was so broken it was disgusting. Kai was using that as yet another weapon to ruin Meilei’s life. He was a calculating son of a bitch.
That was tearing Meilei to pieces more than anything Kai Xuchen could throw at her.
“Shhhh. You will wake Yue.” Suying appeared from the kitchen where she was making them all cocoa. They had waited for Meilei and worried about her after she informed them what tonight’s overtime was for. Neither woman trusted that Kai would protect her if anything happened. Clubs were not somewhere Meilei had ever frequented.
“Did he do anything to you?” Suying asked with concern, sliding a mug on the table before Meilei and handing one to Ling.
Meilei was tired of it too. Enduring this had seemed easy at first, but it wore you down and destroyed you mentally. Not to mention the physical exhaustion. After years as a tech who spent days writing code, running around a multi-level building dragging files and boxes, lunches, dry cleaning, and a long list of other random things was killing her. She had never considered herself unfit until Kai started ordering her around.
He had no heart. Making her work long hours and endless days. She had one single day home in two weeks because she was at his beck and call and couldn’t refuse. He had her cell number from her employee file and harassed her consistently.